Tuesday, December 13, 2011Jason Garrett wishes he called time sooner
By Todd Archer

IRVING, Texas -- For the second straight week, Jason Garrett had a timeout issue, but this time the Cowboys coach admitted he should have done something different.

After an 18-yard completion to New York Giants tight end Jake Ballard put the ball on the Dallas 1-yard line, Garrett waited 14 seconds before calling a timeout with 1:00 to play. Owner and general manager Jerry Jones and executive vice president Stephen Jones were spotted in their suite by the NBC cameras calling for an earlier timeout.

“Yeah, when you look at that situation, we probably could’ve taken that a little quicker,” Garrett said. “We were trying to get that thing called. There were a couple of times in the game where I had to run down the sideline to get it called. I could’ve been a little quicker on the draw on that. But I thought we did a good job handling that situation after that. We did bang the timeouts.”

Garrett said he considered letting the Giants score in order to preserve more time. They called their final timeout with 51 seconds to play, and New York scored on its next play.

Had the Cowboys called a timeout sooner after Ballard’s catch, they would have been position to run one or two more plays on their final drive, instead of spiking the ball with six seconds to play to set up Dan Bailey for a 47-yard field goal attempt.